Climate change and adaptive capacity to extreme events in

the Rhine basin

A.H. te Linde1,2, J.C.J.H. Aerts1
1
Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM - VU), De Boelelaan 1087, 1081 HV Amsterdam; aline.te.linde@ivm.vu.nl
2
Deltares, Rotterdamseweg 185, 2629 HD Delft

Abstract differences in future change of precipitation

Impacts of land use change, flood defense and temperature. Also, the present day
measures and climate change on peak variance of those parameters are left
discharges are studied at different scales in the unchanged, while changes can be expected
Rhine basin. Few studies, though, have due to climate change. To overcome these
studied the combined effect of these variables limitations, we applied a method that uses
in scenarios and how these scenarios change (bias-corrected) direct output from the regional
the return period of flood peaks. In the current climate model (RCM) RACMO (Lenderink,
paper we introduce a method to combine 2003), forced by GCM ECHAM 5 as well.
simulations of the effect of upstream flooding To estimate extreme discharges at Lobith,
and climate change on flood-peak probability. we added an extra shape parameter to the
Gumbel distribution, and applied the Weibull
Introduction distribution.
Recent floods and droughts reinforced cross-
boundary cooperation on flood management in
the Rhine basin (e.g. IKSR Flood Action Plan,
Dutch-German Working Group on Floods
(since 1997), EU Floods Directive (2007)).
However, these initiatives do not consider
the effect of climate change in the Rhine basin,
while recent research findings conclude that as
a result of climate change peak discharge is
likely to move from spring to winter due to early
snowmelt in addition to precipitation increase
(e.g. Kwadijk and Middelkoop, 1994;
Middelkoop et al., 2001; Kleinn et al, 2005). Figure 1. Flow chart displaying all modelling steps
Furthermore, historical time series are too
short to derive a statistically sound Results
extrapolation of return periods of flood peaks
with a low probability. In the current paper we Climate change impact
introduce a method to simulate low probability Following the climate change scenarios, mean
floods, and combine the effect of upstream winter discharge is expected to increase by 11
flooding and different climate change scenarios % according to the Wp scenario and to 14 %
on peak discharges. according to the RACMO scenario (Table 1).

Method Table 1: Seasonal change in discharge at Lobith according

All modelling steps are visualized in Fig. 1. We to KNMI’06 scenarios and RACMO output, for 2050
used the semi-distributed conceptual HBV Q (m3/s) DJF MAM JJA SON Year
model for rainfall modeling and the Observed
2778 2518 2314 1809 2355
hydrodynamic model SOBEK to recalculate all 1961-1995
yearly maximum discharges. To produce dQ G (%) 6.71 2.03 -2.16 1.47 2.01
dQ Gp (%) 5.58 3.00 -17.40 -17.36 -6.61
discharge series of at least 1000 years we dQ W (%) 13.04 4.47 -3.94 3.02 4.15
applied the stochastic rainfall generator dQ Wp (%) 10.56 6.50 -31.68 -33.25 -11.97
developed for the whole Rhine basin by dQ RACMO
14.20 -0.75 -17.36 -12.63 -4.14
Beersma (2001). (%)
We constructed specific climate scenarios
for the Rhine basin by applying the delta Figure 2 shows that the spatial variation of the
change approach on a historical dataset (1961- projected change differs to a large extent
1995), based on the KNMI’06 scenarios (Te between RACMO and Wp. This is most likely a
Linde, 2007). But the delta change does not direct result from the spatial variation in direct
take into account possible geographical RCM output, compared to the uniformly spread
delta change approach.
 a)

b)

Figure 2. Mean change in winter discharge for the Wp and

RACMO scenarios (2050)

Interpreting extremes and effect of flooding

According to Figure 3 and Table 2, the flood
frequency will increase as a result of climate
change. For the situation without flooding, a Figure 3: Extreme value distribution of yearly maximum at
3 Lobith The Weibull distribution fits are shown without
peak discharge of 15,000 m /s with a return confidence intervals. Displayed are the reference situation
period of 500 years (Gumbel variate is 6.2) in (a) and 2050 ac-cording to the Wp scenario (b)
the reference situation will shift to a return
period of 100 years (Gumbel variate is 4.6) in
the Wp scenario. Also, the 1/1000 year event modelling. This enabled us to simulate low
3
of 15,700 m /s in the reference situation will probability floods, and to combine the analysis
3
shift to 18,200 m /s in 2050. If we do take into on the effect of upstream flooding and different
account the simulated effect of flooding, these climate change scenarios on peak discharges.
differences in peak discharges and return
periods between the reference and the Wp References
scenario for 2050 are less dramatic. The Beersma, J.J., Buishand, T.A., Wójcik, R. (2001) Rainfall
1/1000 year event will then shift from 14,000 generator for the Rhine basin; multi-site simulation of
3 3 daily weather variables by nearest-neighbour
m /s in the reference situation to 15,000 m /s in
resampling. P. Krahe, Herpertz, D. Lelystad, the
2050, which is a reduction of 10 – 15%. Netherlands, International Com-mission for the
Hydrology of the Rhine basin CHR. CHR-Report no. I-
Table 2 Estimated return periods obtained by ranking the 20: 69-77.
peak events at Lobith according to size and linking return Kleinn, J., Frei, C., Gurtz, J., Lüthi, D., Vidale, P., Chär, C.
periods to the ranks. A dataset of 1000 years was used (2005) Hydrologic simulations in the Rhine basin
driven by a regional climate model. Journal of
Return Geophysical Research,110 (D04102,
Reference Climate change (Wp)
period doi:10.1029/2004JD005143).
Without With Without With Kwadijk, J., & Middelkoop, H. (1994) Estimation of impact
flooding flooding flooding flooding of climate change on the peak discharge probability of
1000 15,700 14,000 18,200 15,400 the river Rhine. Climatic Change, 27, 199-224.
500 15,000 13,700 17,700 14,800 Lenderink, G., Hurk, B. Van den, Van Meijgaard, E., Van
200 14,300 13,100 16,700 14,500 Ulden, A., & Cuijpers, J. (2003) Simulation of present-
100 12,900 12,600 15,200 13,600 day climate in RACMO2: first results and model
developments. (Tech. Rep. No. 252). KNMI.
Te Linde, A.H. (2007) Effect of climate change on the
Conclusion discharge of the rivers Rhine and Meuse. Applying the
Results show that the flood-peak probabilities KNMI 2006 scenarios using the HBV model. Delft, The
are likely to increase as a result of climate Netherlands, WL | Delft Hydraulics: 1-30.
change in the Rhine basin, and that there are Middelkoop, H., Daamen, K., Gellens, D., Grabs, W.,
Kwadijk, J.C.J., Lang, H., Parmet, B.W.A.H., Schädler,
large (spatial) differences between climate B., Schulla, J., Wilke, K. (2001) Impact of climate
change scenarios. The simulated effect of change on hydrologi-cal regimes and water resources
flooding decreases peak discharge at Lobith by management in the Rhine basin. Climatic Change 49:
105-128.
10 – 15%. We used a modelling method that
combines a weather generator and different
climate change scenarios with hydrological